A Certain Romance
by dorkickassmeadowes
Summary: She wasn't confused anymore. He wasn't confusing, this silly, wonderful boy – man, he was so simple she could weep. Gently, she leant forward slightly, and took his long, ink marked fingers in her own, and brought them up so their interlocked hands were in front of their faces. "I can't tell," she whispered, staring at their hands, "where I begin and you end."


**Author's Note: written for tumblr's jily secret santa! i still don't own anything!**

* * *

The snow fell softly over Hogwarts, and Lily Evans half-ran from the greenhouses to the Entrance Hall.

"Bloody hell, have you seen the weather out there?" she said to no one in particular, "it's bonkers."

"I reckon it's come early this year," said a deep voice behind her. She turned around, shaking flakes of snow out of her hair. James stood in the doorway, ruddy cheeked and smirking.

"Like Amos Diggory after one too many firewhiskeys?"

James snorted. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Evans!"

She laughed, and they began walking together. Their shoulders kept bumping, and Lily's heart kept skipping a few beats like a record when the needle's broken. And she might've been imagining it, but his hand brushed hers as they turned into the corridor that split off like a fork; one set of stairs leading to the Common Room and the other to the third floor.

"Going to the Common Room?" _Say yes, _she thought, gazing up at him through her eyelashes, _say yes and walk with me. Walk with me everywhere, hold my hand, kiss my face, walk with me to the Common Room you beautiful boy_.

"Nah, I've got to go and see a man about a Kneazle." He tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, before sprinting off up the stairs to the third floor. Lily's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, and her heart dropped into her stomach. Strange boy. What a strange, strange boy. Who brushes hands with someone and then runs away? What kind of idiot does that?

* * *

"Mary have you seen my _Christmas Carol_?"

She stood in the dormitory, rifling through her stack of Muggle classics. It was Christmas next week, so close she could almost taste it, and _goodness_, she was tired. She wanted nothing more than to sit on her bed and read Charles Dickens until the snow stopped and James Potter stopped being infuriating. Either or.

"Your what-now-please?" Mary asked from her bed by the window in the girls' dormitory. Lily's hands were in her hair – a habit she'd picked up from James.

"Charles Dickens, Mary! – you know the one, Ebenezer Scrooge, ghost of Christmas past – I can't find it anywhere!"

Mary, who was reading _Witch Weekly_, and chain smoking, pulled a face. "I'd apologise for not being a _massive square_ like you, but I'm not sorry so-" she shrugged, to indicate her apathy.

Lily laughed. "Very funny. Seriously though, it's December, and every year I read _A Christmas Carol_ before Christmas Day itself, and I can't find it – _oh,_ I've lost it!"

"Your collection _does_ look a little diminished," Mary reasoned, stubbing her cigarette out in the ash tray she kept by her bed. "Where's the Austen?"

"Austen_s, _Mary, I own more than one of them and they're here-_ shite, where're my Austens_?"

"An awful lot of your books aren't there. Now I think about it." Mary added, and Lily groaned, face in hands.

"Some tosser's taken my books, Mar!" she cried, "They've either been nicked or I've lost them and I never lose things! Not my books!"

Mary smirked, and flicked to the next page in her magazine with a lazy air that Lily envied.

"I never lose things!" the redhead repeated, "Never ever!"

"Yeah, I'm aware of that," Mary paused, "Marlene might've taken them."

"Marlene?" Lily exclaimed, "why would Marlene take my books?"

"She was up here an hour ago, I dunno, she might've…"

"But _why_? She doesn't even like Austen! She likes the Beats! I don't like the Beats! I hate the Beats! _Why would she take my books?_"

"Why're _you _being so melodramatic about all this?" Mary mumbled, raising her eyebrows. Lily ignored her.

"Why do people have to be so _confusing_?" she seethed, "First James, now Marlene!"

Mary said nothing, and lit another cigarette. Lily paused for a moment, considering her next move, and then, quick as a flash, she ran from the room. Mary rolled her eyes.

* * *

Marlene lay sprawled on the rug in front of the fire in the Common Room, reading _On The Road _and listening to the wireless.

"Where are my books?"

"Sorry?"

"My books! Where are they?"

Marlene, still reading, raised her eyebrows. "On your bedside table, I expect…"

"They're not! And Mary said you were in the dormitory earlier-"

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes, "because _I live there_."

"So where are my books?" Lily said again, "I don't lose things! I never lose things! I am Queen of Not Losing Things!"

"You're a drama queen, that's what you are," Marlene replied, "I haven't touched your books, Red, don't worry."

"Then who has?"

Marlene closed her book and shuffled into a sitting position. "Sometimes, Red," she said slowly, like she was speaking to a child, or an idiot, "people lose things."

Lily rolled her eyes. "_People _don't lose a whole stack of books, Marlene! And you're the only girl in our year and house that actually reads – I mean who else would nick them? I doubt Mary can read-"

"Oi!" Marlene cut in, "Mary reads! Mary reads magazines!"

"Mary looks at the pictures in the magazines," Lily said, and Marlene wrinkled her nose.

"Snob."

"Book thief."

"I haven't touched your ruddy books, Evans!" Marlene protested, although it was in vain. Nobody could talk Lily down from a height like this. No one except…

"James might have them."

"James might have what?"

"Your books, dumb arse," Marlene sighed, and lent back on her elbows, "he might have your books."

"Why on earth would James have my books? How would he get my book? Boys can't go into the girl's dormitories-"

"Lily," the blonde girl rolled her eyes, "we go to a _magic _school. An _Accio_ would've sufficed."

Lily scrunched up her nose. "Well anyway," she replied, "it doesn't matter because even if he _did _take my book because he's _gone to see a man about a Kneazle_ and I don't think I'd be able to find him even if I tried."

She sat down on the coffee table with a crash, and Marlene struggled not to roll her eyes again.

"And have you tried?"

Lily looked at the floor. She wanted to, quite desperately, to see James and ask him what in the name of Merlin's balls was he thinking, walking so close to a girl like that before running away? What was he _thinking_?

"No," she mumbled, "I haven't. We were walking together, right-" Marlene sat further up, to listen to Lily's ramble, "- and there wasn't any flirting or anything but our shoulders kept _bumping_ and it made my stomach twist and turn like I was on the waltzers at the fair, remember, Blackpool pier 1974-"

"Mary got felt up by the kiddie who ran the candyfloss stall, I remember it well."

"Ugh, I'd forgotten about that – _anyway_, it felt like that. Being with him…feels like that. And then he said he had to go and see a man about a Kneazle and I just…_what if he's gone to see a girl, Marlene?_"

For a moment, there was silence between them, and then Marlene snorted so loudly it scared the first years who were sat on the sofas.

"Merlin's bollocks, Lily!" she laughed, "Who put that idea into your head?"

Lily Evans opened and closed her mouth several times like a fish. "He didn't want me to know, that's why he said…the Kneazle thing, y'know? Because he didn't want to me to know. About…"

Marlene dog eared her copy of _On The Road_ and set it aside for later, for when Lily wasn't being ridiculous.

"Now listen here, Red," she said, "The only girl Potter wants to see is _you_."

Lily looked up, eyes hopeful. "How do you know?"

"I know everything," Marlene shrugged, "you should go look for him. And your books."

"Shit," Lily cursed, flying from the room, red hair waving behind her like a flag, "my books!"

Marlene smirked, and picked _On The Road _back up.

* * *

She tore through the corridors like a hurricane, tripping over first years and walking right through ghosts. She had a reputation to protect, didn't she? A reputation as someone who was put together and _never lost anything ever_. If Potter had ruined this reputation, then she might have to rethink the whole heart-in-stomach thing.

Lily found them – all four Marauders – in an empty Charms classroom. She'd walked past it, but the sounds of Peter's hysterical giggles attracted her attention. She opened the door so quietly they didn't hear her. The four boys were crowded around the desk at the front of the classroom, talking excitedly.

"Prongs you know that this is the most pathetic thing you've ever done in your entire life, don't you?" Sirius was saying. Lily's heart began thumping in her throat as James ran a hand through his already messy hair.

"Yeah, yeah, alright, I'm pathetically in love with her, get over it."

"Never getting over it – where's the cover for _Emma_?"

"Moony's got it, chuck it here."

Remus obliged.

"There we go."

"D'you think she'll suspect anything?"

"Probably not, she was hanging out in the Common Room last time I-"

Knees shaking slightly, Lily cleared her throat. _What was he doing? What was he doing? That boy, that beautiful boy._

He span around, and the moment their eyes made contact Lily felt her heart drop one hundred feet into her stomach. Gold, his eyes were gold, and they sparkled in the dim lights of the classroom.

"Evans," he croaked, and she wanted to cry. _Pathetically in love indeed_.

The rest of the Marauders turned around, and Sirius Black began to chortle.

"Balls deep in trouble now, mate!" he cackled. Remus elbowed him.

"Oi!"

Lily had not taken her eyes off James.

"We should go," mumbled Peter, poking Sirius in the back.

"Why're you lot assaulting me so much today? _Circe_!"

"Shut up." Remus hissed, and the three of them filed out in silence. Lily's mouth had gone horrible dry. On the desk, lay her books, her lovely, battered, torn up books. New covers, shiny new covers, lay beside them. James had his wand in his hand.

"Marlene said…"

"Yeah."

She sort of stumbled towards him, head spinning. She'd been moaning for weeks about the state of her Dickens, spending hours complaining to him as they did their homework together, and now…

"When you ran off," she mumbled, "I thought you…"

"Thought I what?"

She couldn't help but stare at his mouth, the scar he had on his upper lip from that time he got into a physical fist fight with Bertram Aubrey. He hadn't shaved.

"You didn't want to..." she trailed off. He was looking at her like she was some kind of angel. Like he'd never seen something so beautiful in his entire life. "Hang out," she finished, "didn't want to hang out with me."

He almost laughed. "I've got your…"

"Yeah."

"Right. OK. Right. Yeah. I was…Thing is, Lily, right? Thing is that Mum and Dad have been pumping money into the war effort, and I haven't had a lot of disposable income, everything's been going into the Order, yeah?"

She nodded. He ran a hand through his hair.

"And I wanted to do something…for you, I mean, because the lads don't need Christmas presents, we don't – I mean Sirius gets us stuff because I think he feels like that's the only thing –_ anyway_-"

She laughed a little, giggles popping out of her mouth like bubbles. "Anyway what?"

"I wanted to do something for you that you would appreciate, and that would make you happy and that wouldn't cost the Earth." He paused, and she stepped forward a little. She just wanted to be as close to him as she possibly could. James seemed to sway a little, like her presence was making him drunk.

"So I got new covers for your books – well, Remus got them. He knows a bloke, y'know? And I was…"

Suddenly, Lily's head unclouded and she knew exactly what to do. She wasn't confused anymore. He wasn't _confusing_, this silly, wonderful boy – _man_, he was so simple she could weep. Gently, she leant forward slightly, and took his long, ink marked fingers in her own, and brought them up so their interlocked hands were in front of their faces.

"I can't tell," she whispered, staring at their hands, "where I begin and you end."

She glanced up, into his golden eyes.

"Hi," he muttered.

"Hi," came the equally quiet reply.

"I was going to give them to you on Christmas Day," he explained, voice hitching in his throat.

"Thank you," Lily murmured, "so much."

"My pleasure," he hummed, "it was my-"

As the snow fell softly on the grounds of Hogwarts, Lily Evans closed the small gap between her and James Potter in an abandoned Charms classroom, and kissed him.


End file.
